There was a young queen who suffered from frequent night terrors. One day she realized she was pregnant. She wanted her child to never feel fear or pain, so she went to her totem, the red dragon, and begged for assistance.

The red dragon knew that the answer was to teach the young one to heal instead of to avoid pain. However, the queen would not be appeased with this solution.

So, the dragon went to a far time and place where men saw visions drunk off of fermented agave juice.

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I wondered today what it would be to hold you and to share with you all my victories and insecurities.

Claire was exhausted from her time with Ve and was not prepared to answer the questions of the nosy Serena.

“Just what?”

“Just just,” Claire answered with a smile.

“You’re weird.”

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As Claire tossed and turned, her parrot Princess Sophie began to act strangely. She started making a guttural noise and circling the cage as if trying to remember flight. Then, Princess Sophie disappeared, and a peacock appeared.

The peacock advised, “Ask the witches about the spider woman.”

Claire reached for her journal to write the directions and noticed several pages were torn out. Had Serena taken them?

“Enough! You ask for fairness. I will offer mercy. The prince will become a dragon. He has 1,000 years to find a way to break the curse. If he fails, he continues as a dragon until his death. Vendola, Viola, and Vanolia, you may become a dragon as well and help protect him,” decided the eldest fairy, the midnight fairy.

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I am young and feeling younger by the minute. I am not sure about life, but I do pay attention.

Life may be a journey, but you are my destination.

You are a surprise in a humdrum world. You are the mischievous, lone sun ray during a personal storm. You are the red in all my portraits.

“So, we went to the fairy counsel with all of our kingdom’s riches and begged for our brother’s life. Finally, our patron, the owl fairy, asked for a compromise. The tree fairy suggested someone take our brother’s place. My sisters and I agreed, but the dragon fairy demanded punishment to our brother for shedding innocent blood.”

“How can a dragon be innocent? Aren’t they evil?”

“Beyond good and bad there is a field, Claire. We will meet you there.”

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my finger nails entrap blood,

forming brown crust crescent,

smelling of burnt copper.

an extraction both necessary and futile

as hopeless as murder.

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Dear Best Friend,

Today, I saw a giant as he ducked his head into a bar’s door way. Is he under a curse, or is it really just a pituitary sneeze?

The prince with a lot to prove knelt before the king presenting him the dead dragon’s head.

The king, pleased, set the prince’s coronation for the dawn after the next full moon.

Until that day, there was to be feasting, drinking, dancing, and fireworks every night.

That night as the drunken prince fell asleep, the dragon fairy began to attack him screeching how he had killed one of her loves. The dragon fairy cursed him demanding he roam the land as a lone dragon.

As a cultured prince, he had studied fairies and other magical creatures. He knew nothing would happen unless the fairy counsel agreed to enact the curse. He knew the counsel met at midnight on every full moon.